Fabulous Easter Weekend in Budapest - Day 2

Saturday 3 April 2010
We woke up early at 8am and headed up for breakfast by around 8:45am. First mistake – not wearing shoes up stairs to breakfast! Judit was quick to let us know that shoes must be worn at all times so that we don’t slip and fall! Finishing up breakfast we headed down to Batthyány Square to catch the train to the Central Market in Pest. We caught Tram 41 and off we went! We got off just before the Victory Bridge and walked across to Pest.

The market building is huge and beautiful. Inside are stalls selling all kinds of paprika, meats, veggies and Hungarian crafts (ok, the crafts are more tourist naf). We found that after so many market visits over the last few years that they are all starting to look similar, so we didn’t spend too much time there. We headed down Vaci Utca, the pedestrian street lined with cafes and touristy stores. The architecture is lovely and we decided to stop for a quick drink to admire it! More wandering and we found ourselves on the Danube River at a lovely restaurant for lunch. We ordered the goulash and bevies and relaxed in the sunshine. Delicious!

After lunch called for more wandering so we walked all the way up to Parliament to admire the beautiful building. Along the way we came to a bunch of metal shoes along the banks of the Danube. This is a tribute to all the Jews that were killed by the Nazis in WW2. Apparently they didn’t have transport to take them to a concentration camp, so they ordered them to the banks of the river, tied them in groups of twos and shot 1 of pair. They were then thrown into the river. Judit actually worked with someone who had been shot and managed to survive, the cold of the river (it was Nov) seemed to have helped him survive.

We ended up around Parliament, which is a beautiful neo-gothic building on the Danube. As it was a Saturday, and time for another drink, we looked around for a cafe...however everything was closed for the weekend. We wandered up to the Margaret Bridge and crossed back over to Buda and headed back to Batthyány Square and settled into the patio at Angelika overlooking the river. After a few minutes we noticed a bunch of people walking by with pillows. Weird. And then some more...finally the waiter went across the street and asked someone and it turns out they had a flash mob pillow fight at the bottom of castle hill that day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOus9C0xEOU Cool!

By this point we were both exhausted, so headed up to our B&B for a quick cat nap/book read before dinner. We decided to go back up the hill for dinner and just found a semi-touristy place with a simple menu for dinner. We enjoyed our dinner, but could have done without the crappy gypsy renditions of Phantom of the Opera on the accordion...sorry Bruce!